After Newtown, Dem senators to introduce gun bills

When the 113th Congress opens for business in January, gun control advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill — including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein — will renew efforts to ban assault weapons and mandate background checks on all gun transactions.

“There have been a rash of these unbelievably horrible incidents, culminating in yesterday’s shocking act in Newtown,” Schumer said in a statement. “I am hopeful that yesterday’s unspeakable events will cause the nation to re-examine its position on guns, and allow us to come to a solution that still preserves the right to bear arms for law-abiding citizens, but makes it much harder for those who would do us harm to obtain firearms.”

But the likelihood of gun control legislation winning congressional approval is not any brighter than it was prior to the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., which took the lives of 20 children and six adults.

With gun-rights-minded Republicans in control of the House and some Senate Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Tester, D-Montana, opposing gun control, legislation aimed at reining in access to lethal weaponry faces a steep uphill climb — no matter how much the political ground has shifted.

“Everyone’s frustrated and I understand why people use this terrible tragedy for a good purpose, trying to get a discussion going on gun control,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “But the House probably wouldn’t even bring any of it up for a vote.”

While gun control enjoys wider support in the Democratic-controlled Senate, the lack of 60 votes to end a filibuster is amplified by Democrats representing red states who would vote for such measures at their political peril.

Pointing to Sen.-elect Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat who won an upset victory last month to win a seat as senator from North Dakota, Sabato said: “You think she’s going to vote for gun control and have a prayer for re-election?” Heitkamp touted her high NRA rating during her campaign.

Nevertheless, lawmakers who favor gun control appear committed to introducing and fighting for legislation when the new Congress convenes.

There is a “high likelihood” that Feinstein, will offer up an updated version of the assault weapons ban, a person familiar with her thinking said.

The San Francisco Democrat sponsored the original 1994 ban, which outlawed specific types of semi-automatic weapons that accept detachable magazines and have a laundry list of features such as flash suppressors, threaded barrels and bayonet holders. That law expired in 2004.

Although the exact contents of Feinstein’s new proposal have yet to be ironed out, it may be based in part on California’s state law controlling semi-automatic weapons.

The law, among the nation’s toughest, bars most weapons with detachable magazines and a single extra feature such as flash suppressor or a folding stock.

“The assault weapons ban is a piece of the puzzle,” said Benjamin Van Houten, managing attorney of the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun violence. “It’s not the whole thing but it’s an important piece for moving forward on this issue.”

Similarly, New York Democrat Schumer is likely to reintroduce his Fix Gun Checks Act, which would require background checks on virtually all gun transactions. Under current law, background checks are done only on weapons sold by federally licensed firearms dealers. Private sales of weapons — some of which occur at gun shows — do not require checks.

Schumer’s proposal would require those checks be made. It contains exceptions for gifts between family members and other circumstances.
Last year, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., introduced similar legislation in the House. McCarthy’s husband was killed in 1993 in a mass shooting aboard a Long Island Railroad commuter train.

Opponents of these bills, primarily House Republicans, are unlikely to be swayed by post-Newtown appeals. Although most lawmakers refrained from politics in the wake of the shootings, there was little indication their views about gun control had changed.

“We have to be careful about suggesting new gun laws,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., incoming Republican Conference chair who was interviewed by C-SPAN. “We need to look at what drives a crazy person to do these kind of actions and make sure that we’re enforcing the laws that are currently on the books.”

Far from just playing defense, Republicans and their allies among Democrats worked over the past two years to widen gun rights. In 2010, a bipartisan coalition succeeded in lifting a federal ban on guns in national parks. But a bill to require reciprocity among states with concealed-carry weapons laws failed earlier this year.

Many Texas Republicans favor expanding gun ownership and carrying as the best way to combat mass shooters.

After the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., this past summer, Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, wondered aloud on in a radio interview: “With all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying? That could have stopped this guy more quickly?”

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, which like the NRA is based in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs, argued in an online blog posting that the Connecticut shootings show that more guns — not less — are the best way to prevent mass shootings.

Gun owners “insist that these criminal-friendly elected officials not even try to blame gun owners and our ‘gun culture’ for what a criminal did,” Pratt wrote. “Had a few of us been available with guns at the Newton school, most of the victims might still be alive.”

A spokesman for the National Rifle Association declined to talk about the powerful group’s view of gun control measures in the wake of the Connecticut shootings.

“Until the facts are thoroughly known, NRA will not have any comment,” said NRA public affairs director Andrew Arulanandam.